Morey's Piers case study
Transforming water park and amusement ticket validation with VTAP NFC Wallet readers
Morey's Piers case study
Transforming water park and amusement ticket validation with VTAP NFC Wallet readers
Morey’s Piers
Morey’s Piers is a legendary seaside family entertainment destination in Wildwood, New Jersey. They welcome around 5 million visitors each summer across 3 amusement piers and 2 water parks. Known for innovation and guest experience, they faced challenges with an outdated approach to ticket validation. It slowed throughput and frustrated guests, who have come to expect much more streamlined experiences.
The challenges
- Barcode and QR readers failed in bright sunlight and wet environments
- Guests struggled when presenting phone screens and paper tickets
- Long queues formed at ticket booths during peak times to make purchases
- Addressing issues with scanning failure became common for operations team
- Inconsistent guest experiences risked the adoption of digital ticketing
The VTAP NFC solution
- Over a hundred VTAP50 NFC readers were deployed at every ticketing checkpoint, across all piers and water parks
- Dozens of additional VTAP100 counter-top readers were installed in ticket booths, alongside the existing POS equipment
- Morey’s worked with their development partner, Sunset Key, to build and integrate their own NFC Wallet pass issuance capability, using the free Apple PassKit and Google Smart Tap APIs
- The flexible VTAP USB and serial interfaces enabled seamless integration with the existing hardware, designed for salty seaside conditions
- Now, guests just tap their phones for instant ticket validation – the Morey’s NFC Wallet pass pops up automatically
- Mobile wallet passes enable direct-to-ride access, skipping ticket booths, enhancing satisfaction and improving efficiency
Removing guest complaints with a VTAP NFC Wallet ticketing solution
2 months
to roll out
100k+
NFC taps per month
15%
fewer ticket booth transactions
60%
reduction in staff attending to ticketing queries
Tyler Jacobs, Morey’s Piers, says,
“Working with the VTAP team has been a fantastic experience. They really listened to our needs and helped us integrate the NFC readers seamlessly with our existing ticket validation hardware, which was already engineered to withstand the challenges of our seaside, salt-air environment. The technology has performed flawlessly. We’ve had nearly zero issues reported from our operations team or guests. It’s clear that NFC is the future of our guest engagement strategy. What impressed me most was how collaborative the team was in making sure everything fit into our operation without disruption.”